First time going from memory in years. All in all, I mostly got it I think :)
This song comes from Bob Dylan’s World Gone Wrong album, released sometime around 1990. While I don’t know this for sure, I don’t think he wrote any of the songs on that album; they’re all traditional (probably American) folk songs - I think.
This song has the ring of a civil war era folk song. From what I can tell, the two characters we get to know are Union soldiers. They both agree to write home for one another, should the other fall - only to die side by side atop some treacherous hill.
EDIT: Listening now, I realize I skipped the second verse completely 😬
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